RJ02-Reflective Journal Entry 3- Formative Assessment - Due Saturday, March 5,2011
Develop a activity that you can use to provide formative feedback. Describe this activity, upload it, and link it to this entry.
Describe the concept that is difficult to learn or the misconception that this activity addresses.
Provide a link in your description to the appropriate GSE.
Explain how your activity allows you to assess your students' understanding, as well as the feedback that you will provide to help them correct their thinking.
The inquiry activity that I will be doing pertains to genetics, mutations, and heredity. It is entitled "Radiated Radishes" and is being introduced as an ongoing experiment throughout the genetics and heredity chapters. It addresses GSE LS1-p2. Students will be presented with the question, "What do you know about radiation?" As a class we will brainstorm where one could be subject to radiation, and what it can do to the body. In addition, we will brainstorm characteristics that one would be able to measure over time to determine the effect of radiation on a plant. In their lab groups, students will receive radiates radish seeds and will choose a variable brainstormed to measure over time to determine what radiation will do to the plant or vegetable. The students will have to write up a conclusion answering the following questions:
What Happened? Determine by analyzing your qualitative and quantitative data collected by each group member. Connect data to background information to reinforce this theory.
Assess how this study affects our world.
Is what happened to the radish inheritable? Why or why not?
Finally propose what the radiation did to the radish, and what could be done as a follow up. How can this information be applied to real world medical situations?
Students will present their theories and findings to the rest of the class with at least two types of media, and propose a follow up experiment to further their knowledge on mutations.
I am finding that much of students knowledge as they enter their sophomore year and begin biology is disjointed. They are not really seeing the "big picture," or how what happens from organelle to organism is relatable. This long term lab activity is designed to bring students knowledge together of cell division, genetics, heredity, and modern science (human genome and medicine). In this activity although I will be assessing the quality of their work, I am really looking to help them develop their critical thinking and analyses skills.
This lab is made to give students a real world lesson on science and the art of research. Students, from many years of standard lab activities, have this misconception that everything you set out to observe or research will be significant, which in actuality is untrue. Here, students think, and mostly know that radiation is bad and can do bad things, but the art of collecting data to prove this is a lesson needed to be learned. If students in their observable quiality of the radishes determine that what they are looking at does not represent how radiation affects the radish, they will not be penalized and will be able to collect data with another group. They will not be penalized because this happens all the time in studies done around the world. They will be able to include in their presentation why they think no change occured to the property they observed, and how the project could be modified to be more telling.
Students will be receiving feedback from the beginning brainstorm, after they collect their data, and when they propose their presentation ideas to amke sure that they are on the right track. From this breakdown I will be able to guide them to think critically about the situation so that the goal of the lab is still obtained. This is a great activity because it is sometimes difficult to observe students critical thinking abilities in summative assessment, because you want to make sure they have the content down.
RJ02-Reflective Journal Entry 3- Formative Assessment - Due Saturday, March 5,2011
The inquiry activity that I will be doing pertains to genetics, mutations, and heredity. It is entitled "Radiated Radishes" and is being introduced as an ongoing experiment throughout the genetics and heredity chapters. It addresses GSE LS1-p2. Students will be presented with the question, "What do you know about radiation?" As a class we will brainstorm where one could be subject to radiation, and what it can do to the body. In addition, we will brainstorm characteristics that one would be able to measure over time to determine the effect of radiation on a plant. In their lab groups, students will receive radiates radish seeds and will choose a variable brainstormed to measure over time to determine what radiation will do to the plant or vegetable. The students will have to write up a conclusion answering the following questions:
What Happened? Determine by analyzing your qualitative and quantitative data collected by each group member. Connect data to background information to reinforce this theory.
Assess how this study affects our world.
Is what happened to the radish inheritable? Why or why not?
Finally propose what the radiation did to the radish, and what could be done as a follow up. How can this information be applied to real world medical situations?
Students will present their theories and findings to the rest of the class with at least two types of media, and propose a follow up experiment to further their knowledge on mutations.
I am finding that much of students knowledge as they enter their sophomore year and begin biology is disjointed. They are not really seeing the "big picture," or how what happens from organelle to organism is relatable. This long term lab activity is designed to bring students knowledge together of cell division, genetics, heredity, and modern science (human genome and medicine). In this activity although I will be assessing the quality of their work, I am really looking to help them develop their critical thinking and analyses skills.
This lab is made to give students a real world lesson on science and the art of research. Students, from many years of standard lab activities, have this misconception that everything you set out to observe or research will be significant, which in actuality is untrue. Here, students think, and mostly know that radiation is bad and can do bad things, but the art of collecting data to prove this is a lesson needed to be learned. If students in their observable quiality of the radishes determine that what they are looking at does not represent how radiation affects the radish, they will not be penalized and will be able to collect data with another group. They will not be penalized because this happens all the time in studies done around the world. They will be able to include in their presentation why they think no change occured to the property they observed, and how the project could be modified to be more telling.
Students will be receiving feedback from the beginning brainstorm, after they collect their data, and when they propose their presentation ideas to amke sure that they are on the right track. From this breakdown I will be able to guide them to think critically about the situation so that the goal of the lab is still obtained. This is a great activity because it is sometimes difficult to observe students critical thinking abilities in summative assessment, because you want to make sure they have the content down.